by G. Bailey
“I was always better than you in class. Give up now, Katy,” he taunts as I push all my strength into the next blow, knocking him back a step. He is right, Riley was always better than me at sword fights, but then again, I wasn’t a vampire back then. Using my vamp speed, I hit faster and harder, knocking him back and back until he is pressed against the archway, where there is one hell of a fall on the other side. “I can keep you safe if you stop. Just stop, Katy!” he screams at me, hitting back harder with his sword, and swiftly he manages to cut my upper arm.
“Fuck,” I swear, stumbling a little, and he takes advantage, knocking my sword out of my hand and lifting the tip of his sword to under my neck.
“I will always win against you, Katy. Let me help you, I will keep you safe and—” He stutters, shock clouding his eyes as he looks down. My hand is still wrapped around the knife I’ve just slammed into his stomach, blood pouring around the metal blade and down his white trousers. Tears fill my eyes as he drops the sword, stumbling back to the archway. My heart cracks as he reaches for me, but I don’t catch him. I do what he did to me, I let him fall. Riley falls backwards off the side of the castle, and I close my eyes for a moment, both my hands shaking harshly.
I just killed my childhood friend.
And I hate that it was me that had to do it. Gods, I hate myself right now. Wiping away my tears, I narrow my eyes on the double doors and the fake god behind it. This is all his fault. He did this to me and Riley. I run to the doors, gripping the chains tightly, and pull them apart like paper in my anger. I wrench the doors open, the blasting light flashing into me as I step into the room. The pressure of his power instantly tries to make me submit, but it doesn’t work like it did before.
I’m not an angel anymore.
“You can’t control me. That’s why you hate the vampires, isn’t it?” I chuckle, pulling out the dagger he made for me. “The child of your own creation can kill you. Funny how fate works like that.”
The three ghosts hover in the room, and I look directly at them. I don’t know how much of them is left, how much they remember, or if they are empty souls of goddesses that once held so much power.
“Help me stop him, and then we will be free,” I plead with them. The goddesses all turn to me, and each one nods their heads. They walk into the light, and it flickers before going still, giving me the time I need to kill it.
Yes!
“I am a god, you cannot kill me!” he roars as I run right towards him, dagger held in the air. “You are nothing compared to me! Compared to the time I have lived! You are—”
He halts as I throw the dagger at the light, and I watch as it disappears into him. For a moment, fear cripples me that it didn’t work, but then the spot where I threw the dagger starts to turn black, bleeding light onto the floor and making a giant hole in the ground.
“I am Kaitlyn Lightson, Queen of the Vampires, and you will be forgotten, fake god,” I shout as the floor starts to violently shake, almost knocking me over, but I manage to hold onto the wall to hold me up. The light above screams, the noise so unholy and painful that I wonder if my ears will bleed. I cover them as I run out of the room, turning to the clearing for Ayda when I see she isn’t there, and instead, the floor is covered in fallen pillars. Rushing, I grab my whistle just as another shake sends me flying across the floor towards the edge of the castle. I grab hold of a rock, cutting my hand and arm as I struggle to hold onto the castle. The screaming of the light above comes to a sudden stop, and I look up as white light explodes from the room he was in, and the blast pushes me far into the air with no one to catch my fall.
Chapter 68
Erendriel Raloxisys
Smothered in angel blood, I swing my sword through another angel before tossing him aside and tugging my sword out of his chest. The battlefield is nothing more than bodies and blood, lining the grass and rocks like ribbons on a painting. Wolves run through the crowd, leaping into the air and catching angels’ wings, dragging them to the ground for vampires or demons to finish off the kill. Everyone is working together, keeping each other alive even as so many more angels flood the battlefield, and our numbers are struggling, that much is clear. I run across a small clearing, just as Henry runs angels through with his spear and steps back, meeting my eyes.
We both think the same thing. Where the hell is Kaitlyn?
I sense her, and she is fine, but she isn’t near. A noise like no other rattles in all our ears, and we all come to a stop, looking up at the sky where the noise is coming from. I just about resist falling to my knees at the noise, but everyone else other than the angels, doesn’t. The angels float in the air, many hovering above the large sea in front of us, looking up at the sky.
“The Great Light is dead,” Henry gasps, holding his chest just before he falls into the mud and blood. Angels everywhere suddenly pass out, falling to the ground or into the sea in front of our eyes.
Suddenly I know exactly where my mate is. And who she just killed.
“Catch the angels! Don’t let them drown!” I shout across the field. I may hate their existence for what they have done, but this is not how we want to be remembered for winning the war. Letting the elements kill them is not an honourable death, and they are in need of help. Maybe if we help them...the goddesses might shine on the vampires once more.
And let me save my queen.
The tales queen, the wolves and the princes of hell start making the same commands as the noise stops, and I run to Henry, turning him over on his back, checking his pulse. He is alive, thankfully. Kaitlyn might just kill me herself if anything happened to her mates. I look up just as Ayda breaks out of the clouds, flying down to me and landing at my side.
“Good girl. Take me to her,” I demand, jumping on her back and grabbing her reins. She runs fast, flying quickly into the air and taking off towards the city. We pass the academy just as bright white light flashes in front of my eyes, and a blast like nothing I’ve felt slams into us, throwing me off Ayda into the open sky.
Kaitlyn!
Chapter 69
Groggily I wake up, the warmth of someone’s chest against my head lulling me into a false sense of safety as warm air whips against my face. A single wet tear drops onto my cheek, snapping me out of the lull I was under as I look down at the brown horse I’m resting on. I turn my head up to see Riley holding onto me, flying the horse down towards the academy, or what is left of it.
His usually golden skin is deathly pale, and his hands shake as he holds onto me. I’m speechless, lost in why he would bother to save me. He shouldn’t have. He is the bad guy, and the bad guys don’t save the day.
Gods, why couldn’t he just be a typical bad guy? Thinking of him as good at all just hurts me so much more than I expected. Riley was my best friend for my entire childhood, and there isn’t a single memory of my life up to the academy where he wasn’t in it. He was my brother, my friend I told all my secrets to, and I did love him. Just not the way he wanted me to love him. We both found our paths in life, and they led us to opposite sides of a war. I won...but I lost, all the same. Tears fall down my cheeks as his horse lands in the dust of the academy, and Riley instantly falls off onto the ground with a loud thud. The horse neighs loudly, almost knocking me off myself as I struggle to move the reins from around me. The academy looks so much worse this close up, so empty of life and dead of love. The worst place that Riley could have brought me to die.
“Riley!” I shout, flinching as I try to move my arm and notice it must be broken. I awkwardly climb off his horse and kneel at his side, lifting his head onto my knees. I brush his locks of hair from his forehead as he looks up at me.
“I am sorry,” he whispers, covering my hand with his on his chest. I glance down at his stomach, seeing the pouring blood staining his waist and trousers, pooling around us in the dust. “I am happy you have your mates, and I am so sorry I believed the light above. I should have trusted you. I shouldn’t have loved you, because you weren’t mine like that.
You were my friend, and I ruined it.”
My chin wobbles as I suck in a deep breath. “I forgive you, Riley Becker. I forgive you.” I burst into tears as he smiles at me, and so many memories of who we used to be flash into my eyes.
“Can we pretend we are back in my car? That everything that happened after, didn’t?” he softly asks me, still smiling. I know he isn’t feeling pain anymore, and that means he must be close to death and his mind is protecting him from the pain of his body. I’m going to lose him in the academy...where I did to start with.
Forgiving him is what he needs in his final moments, and pretending is all I can give him.
“Yes. We finished my drive back to our home after the cinema, and we snuck into my house through the window like we always did so my parents wouldn’t hear. We watched a funny movie together under that horrible pink blanket mum always left out for us, and we laughed about our terrible dates before you slept on my couch. The next morning, we...” I drift off as Riley’s hand falls from mine to his side, and I know he is gone. I cry as I hold him to my chest, knowing that I will never hold my childhood friend again.
Goodbye, Riley Becker. May you rest with the angels.
Chapter 70
A low hum fills my ears, like a butterfly fluttering around the room, so soft and beautiful. I open my eyes to see a white ceiling above me, and my hands dig into soft blue sheets as I sit up, flinching at the pain in my arm, to see my mates all in the room with me. Ren is humming, sat on the edge of my bed next to Henry, who has a book in his hands. Myles is sleeping next to me, almost snoring in the middle of each breath, and Thallon is resting his hands on the mantle of the fireplace, watching the flickering flames of the fire in it.
“Where are we?” I question, my voice cracked, and it reminds me why. I remember yesterday, screaming as Ren and Henry found me, and they took Riley’s body. I cried myself to sleep in Henry’s arms as Ren carried Riley’s body to Ayda and flew him back to earth.
“On the tales island, just until we make our plans of where we want to live. All the vampires who survived are here, and the angels too,” Henry softly explains, crawling across the bed to me. Myles wakes up, instantly turning to me and running his eyes over my face.
“What happened?” I question.
“The angels have lost all their powers and strengths, making them almost human-like but with wings. They all passed out, and the city of Neamh was destroyed, with all the angels on it assumed dead if they didn’t escape in time. My parents got out, and they are excited to meet you when you feel better,” Henry explains. Oh my god.
“We lost one hundred and two vampires, two hundred and eight wolves, and just over five hundred demons. The tales lost only ninety-five of their own, but considering they don’t have that many people, it was a big loss. We are clueless to the angels’ loss as many passed out and dropped into the sea. We tried to save as many as we could,” Myles explains, and we all go silent for a long pause. We lost a lot of people then, and it’s not just me who is mourning. “Vesnia and Bryne are fine, though Vesnia hurt her leg. She is healing now, or she would be here.”
“Is Aala alright?” I question, and Ren nods once as an answer, though he still looks angry. I knew he would be, but I’m curious how long it will take him before he snaps and asks me what he wants to.
“Are you okay?” Thallon gently asks, sitting on the other side of the bed. I think about it for a moment, because I’m really not sure if I’m going to be okay for a while. Killing Riley and him still saving me...well, it will stick with me for a long time. Despite everything he did, he did not deserve to die like that.
“I will be,” I say as the best answer I can give right now.
“Now, are you going to explain why you went off on your fucking own to the Great Light?” Ren demands, looking pretty mad. I don’t blame him.
“It had to be me, and we all know it. The Great Light was linked to me in some kind of way that I can’t explain, and it was my place to kill him,” I say, straightening my back. “I did it for me and for the vampires. I am their queen as much as you are their king. I won’t say sorry for what I did, and I stand by it.”
“I want to be mad at you, but I’m so happy you’re alive I can’t be for long,” Ren says then sighs, rubbing his cheek. “Just no more doing shit like that alone. You’re right, you are the vampire queen, and they need you alive.”
“I love you too,” I chuckle, and his face softens for a moment.
“Now the teacher has told you off, are you ready for the rest of us to tell you how mad we are?” Thallon asks, and I shrug.
“I’m so happy you are all alive, go for it,” I shrug.
“You’re not meant to sound happy about being told off,” Myles grumbles and kisses my shoulder.
“Sorry,” I grin, and they laugh.
“Katy, we have something to show you,” Myles says, stepping into my bedroom. It’s been a week since the battle, and everyone is just about getting used to the new peace we have found. There were so many people injured that it took a long time for us to heal them all. Thankfully, Madi has made it clear we are welcome here until we make a plan for the future. Turns out a good few thousand angels survived, many women and children from the city. They elected a new leader, a woman named Jesmine Kultx, who happily signed a peace treaty with us, the tales, demons and wolves. I tuck Aala into my bed where she has decided to sleep for the last week and a half, needing me close, I suspect. I’ve just fallen more in love with her by the day, and so have the guys. They even playfully argue who is going to make her food and go with her on daily walks around the island. We just work as a family.
“And before you say anything, the auntie-slash-babysitter is here,” Vesnia says, stepping in the room after Myles. I grin and hug my bestie, who kisses my cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I whisper back, letting her go. The battle badly hurt Vesnia’s leg, almost leaving her with a limp, but she doesn’t seem to care or let it bother her. I’m just happy it wasn’t anything worse. I hook my arm in Myles’s, letting him take me out of the room where Thallon, Ren and Henry wait in the corridor next to a portal.
“Where are we going then?” I ask, and Myles looks a little sad, shaking his head once.
“Just wait and see. It’s our gift to you,” Ren says, waving a hand at the portal. Curiosity ruling me, I step through the portal to a...graveyard. I know this graveyard, it’s right outside the church I went to as a kid with Riley. The gravestone in front of me is new, and I fall to my knees in front of it, touching the white stone and running my fingers over the engravement:
Here lies Riley Becker.
Son and best friend.
May the angels bless you
And welcome you home.
Tears fall down my cheeks as I bow my head, wishing for a moment things could be a tiny bit different. Riley should never have become an angel, it corrupted his very soul and changed him into a monster. But I will never remember that man...I’m going to remember the boy who was my friend.
And miss him all the same.
Chapter 71
One Year Later
“Katy!” Aala shouts my name as I finish washing up the dishes from our breakfast. I pick up a tea towel as Aala crashes into the room, her red hair whipping around her shoulders like it’s alive. After the war, Aala was the light in our lives to bring us back to reality and what we all wanted for our future. I grieved for Riley, for all those we lost, but having to put on a brave face for Aala taught me how to actually be brave. How to move on. Shoving her locks of hair from her face, she grins at me. “I was invited to the tales ball for the little ones! Can I go?”
“That depends if a boy or girl invited you,” Henry grumbles, stepping into our kitchen behind her, another gust of wind from outside messing up her hair.
“What Henry meant is sure, but one of us will be taking you there and back,” I say, and she stubbornly huffs before hugging Henry and then running back outside to play with he
r new friends on our island. Henry’s eyes run slowly up and down my body as he walks over, and I don’t need to ask what he is thinking anymore. We simply just know each other. I wrap my arms around his neck as he picks me up, dropping my butt on the counter as he steps in the middle of my legs.
“How come you’re back early?” I question. The new vampire island, or as we like to call it Sizuta Island, is a big island not far off the top of Ireland, and it was completely isolated. Ren said some of our ancestors used to live here before they were killed, and it had some remains of buildings in the middle of it. The island is full of lush fields, rocky and sandy beaches, and even a tiny hill in the centre that could be a mountain if you look from a distance away. The main good thing about the island is the barrier the tales set up for us, making it invisible to humans and secure for us to live on.
For the past seven months, we have lived here in our little home near the hill. The five-bedroom house is cosy but perfect for us. The other vampires have made their own homes around the island, with the help of everyone and a bit of magic to speed things up. After the houses were finished around a month ago, we started building main places for our race to come and socialise. The town centre full of tiny shops is the first thing we all voted and agreed was a good idea, and my guys spend their days building the island. Myles is good at hunting and teaching the vampires how to fish. As for myself, I regularly make portals to the town I was from and get us food, also bringing it back through the portal. Learning to cast a portal took me three months of practice, and two times I dropped myself in the sea, but thankfully Ayda saved me. I’m certain my horse found the entire thing hilarious.